Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (R) and Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong has affirmed that Vietnam treasures ties with New Zealand inits foreign policy.
At a reception in Hanoi on November 14 for Prime Ministerof New Zealand Jacinda Ardern, the Party chief also highlighted Vietnam’sforeign policy of independence, self-reliance, diversification andmultilateralisation of ties, active and proactive global integration.
He spoke highly the results of the earlier talks between PM Ardern and PM Pham Minh Chinh inorder to enhance political and economic ties, people-to-people exchanges and cooperation in various areas, as well as the signing of cooperation agreements.
Having highly evaluated the development of the bilateral relations, especially the upgrade of the relationship to a strategic partnership in 2020, the Party General Secretary thanked New Zealand for offeringsupport to Vietnam over the past years, including the deployment of the Vietnam-New ZealandAction Programme for the 2021-2024 period and the fight against COVID-19.
He expected that the visit would open up a new developmentstage on the back of the past achievements, including cooperation in human resource development, education-training, agriculture and rural development.
PM Ardern, for her part, also hoped that the visit would furtherreinforce the bilateral strategic partnership.
She stressed that the rapid development of economic and tradeties and people-to-people exchanges is evidenced by the arrivals of over 40,000New Zealanders in Vietnam before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, and the presence of Vietnamesepeople living and working in New Zealand.
The PM highly appreciated similarities in the two countries’ foreign policies of peace loving, independence and self-reliance andpeaceful settlement of disputes and differences.
Onregional and global issues of shared concern, the two leaders underscored the importanceof strengthening trust, dialogue, friendly cooperation and goodwill in seekingsolutions to global issues, and enhancing coordination in global issues and atmultilateral forums for peace and cooperation in the region and the world./.
